Julia Roberts Has Her Lightest Blonde Hair Color in Nearly 30 Years

For some reason, I think of Julia Roberts as a redhead. Well, it's not just some reason — some of her most iconic roles (namely in Pretty Woman and My Best Friend's Wedding) saw her sporting shades of auburn that just seem so totally her. But she's clearly trying to get me to change my mind because after several years of what can best be described as bronde, Roberts just debuted the lightest shade of blonde we've seen on her in decades.

The 50-year-old Oscar winner showed up with her newly lightened hair for a Television Critics Association event to discuss her upcoming Amazon series, Homecoming (in which her My Best Friend's Wedding costar, Dermot Mulroney, plays her boyfriend). And while we don't yet know what inspired Roberts to go what's arguably the blondest she's been since that near-platinum short shag she wore to the Academy Awards in 1991, it's safe to assume it has nothing to do with her role as Heidi Bergman. For that, she dons a brown, banged lob that I'm 99-percent sure is a wig.

It's also safe to assume that the lightening was done by her go-to hairstylist of the last quarter century, Serge Normant — or at least by one of the master colorists on his team. (Fun fact: Normant has a huge portrait of a blonde Julia Roberts hanging over the shampoo station at his Manhattan salon.) In mid-July, Roberts posted several photos of herself with Normant on Instagram, including one in which he appears to be right in the middle of styling her hair. "My Mane Man. Hard at work. #26years," she captioned the photo.

And that brings us to something worth noting: While the Television Critics Association was technically the public debut of Roberts's new blondeness, she has apparently been pretty darn flaxen since at least late June, when she finally joined Instagram. The very first picture she posted shows her beaming by a tree with warm, light-golden waves.